by Fergal Keane
16 December
The British begin their first offensive in the Arakan. The operation ends in failure several months later.
1943
13 February
Wingate’s first Chindit expedition begins.
13 October
Lord Louis Mountbatten appointed Supreme Commander, South-East Asia Command.
22 October
Mountbatten meets General William Slim at Dum Dum in India and offers him command of what is to become 14th Army.
30 November
The second British offensive in the Arakan begins.
31 December
The 5th Indian Division, including 4th battalion, Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, begins its attack on the Razabil Fortress.
1944
4 February
Japanese launch Operation ‘Ha-Go’ in the Arakan.
5–29 February
Battle of the ‘Admin Box’. The Japanese suffer their first major defeat in Burma.
5 March
Wingate’s second expedition, Operation Thursday, begins.
8–16 March
The Japanese 15th Army begins Operation ‘U Go’ moving it’s troops across the Chindwin river and towards its twin objectives; Imphal and Kohima.
22–26 March
Japanese forces attack 50th Indian Parachute Brigade at Sangshak. The brigade is forced to withdraw after suffering heavy casualties.
30 March–1 April
1st Assam Regiment’s positions at Jessami and Kharasom are attacked. The battalion becomes divided on the retreat with some troops reaching Kohima and others Dimapur.
4 April
First Japanese attack on GPT Ridge at Kohima.
4–20 April
The defence of Kohima.
5 April
Japanese troops begin to arrive at Kohima’s Naga Village. Tokyo radio erroneously reports that Kohima has fallen.
20 April
The Kohima garrison is relieved by troops of 2 British Division.
13 May
Kohima Ridge is finally cleared.
25 May
General Sato, commander of Japanese 31st Division, signals to 15th Army HQ that he is withdrawing from Kohima.
2 June
Naga Village is finally cleared.
6 June
The final Japanese positions at Kohima are abandoned.
22 June
2nd British Division advancing south from Kohima meet their counterparts advancing north from Imphal. The Imphal Road is re opened.
5 July
The Burma Area Army orders the end of the Imphal operation. The commander of 2nd British Division, Major General John Grover, is relieved of his command.
7 July
The commander of 31st Division, Lieutenant General Kotuku Sato, is relieved of his command.
1945
20 March
Mandalay is re-captured by 14th Army.
2 May
Rangoon is re-occupied by 26th Indian Division.
6 August
An atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima.
9 August
An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki.
15 August
Japan formally surrenders.
2 September
Formal surrender ceremony held on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Charles Ridley Pawsey: Pawsey was the deputy commissioner of the Naga Hills, a civil servant responsible for more than 6,000 square miles of wild mountainous territory on India’s north-eastern frontier. He was the de facto ruler of the territory, in charge of the administration of courts, roads, tax, labour, and security. Charles Pawsey had been living in the region for more than two decades when the Japanese invaded. Although he could have been evacuated Pawsey chose to stay in Kohima throughout the siege.
Ursula Graham Bower: Graham Bower was a Roedean debutante who grew up in the fashionable London neighbourhood of Kensington and went to the Naga Hills as an amateur anthropologist in the late 1930s. One of the local tribes became convinced she was the reincarnation of an imprisoned priestess whom they worshipped as a goddess. Bower would become the first British woman to lead a guerrilla formation and was dubbed the ‘Naga Queen’ by the American press.
Havildar Sohevu Angami: The havildar, roughly equivalent to sergeant, grew up in the village of Phek on the border of the Naga Hills and the state of Manipur. He was a hunter before he joined the Assam Regiment, the youngest formation in the Indian Army, shortly after the outbreak of war in the Far East. He fought in the battle of Jessami and at the deputy commissioner’s tennis court where British, Indian and Japanese troops were separated by just twenty yards. He was awarded the British Empire Medal for his courage at Kohima.
Lance Corporal John Harman: Harman was the son of a millionaire and came to the army from an exclusive private school. However, he refused a commission on the grounds that he did not wish to be set above other men. Harman spent much of his childhood on Lundy Island off the Devon coast and was a lover of the natural world. He was a lance corporal in D company of the 4th Royal West Kents when he carried out the actions which earned him the Victoria Cross at Kohima.
Lieutenant General William Slim: The commander of the 14th Army was the pre-eminent allied general in South-East Asia. A decorated veteran of the Great War he served in the Gurkha Rifles and was a general in the Indian Army at the outbreak of World War Two. Slim was given the task of building a new army that would be capable of carrying the war to the Japanese after a succession of humiliating defeats. The speed and strength of the Japanese advance into the Naga Hills caught him off guard.
Lieutenant General Montagu Stopford: Stopford was born into a military family with roots in the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. On the outbreak of World War Two he commanded an infantry brigade with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France. Stopford was appointed by Slim as overall commander of the Dimapur and Kohima area after the Japanese advance had already begun. He was characterised by one officer who observed him as ambitious, ruthless and extremely able.
Major General John Grover: The commander of British 2nd Division reported to Stopford and commanded the forces responsible for driving the Japanese out of Kohima and opening the road to Imphal. Grover was born in India but sent to Britain as a boy to be educated. During the Great War he served in France and was wounded three times. His relationship with Stopford would deteriorate badly as the battle of Kohima escalated.
Colonel Hugh Upton Richards: The commander of the Kohima garrison came to India after many years serving in West Africa. He was a veteran of the Somme and was wounded and taken prisoner during the Great War. He had initially hoped to serve in General Orde Wingate’s Chindits but found himself transferred to command the Kohima garrison only days before the Japanese attacked.
Lieutenant Colonel John Laverty: The commander of the leading infantry unit at Kohima, 4th battalion, Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, was a native of County Derry in Ireland. Laverty fought in Iraq during the suppression of the Kurdish insurgency in the 1930s and came to the West Kents after they had fought in North Africa. He was described as a ‘typically bloody-minded Irishman’ in one account of the siege of Kohima.
Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi: The commander of the Japanese 15th Army first achieved prominence during the late 1930s as a commander in the Sino-Japanese conflict. He claimed to have been behind the 1937 ‘Marco Polo Bridge incident’ in which a Japanese provocation marked the escalation into all-out war in China. Mutaguchi yearned to play what he termed ‘a decisive’ role in the Far Eastern war and was the central figure behind the invasion of India by the 15th Army.
Lieutenant General Kotuku Sato: Sato led the 31st Division into battle at Kohima and was an old political enemy of Mutaguchi. A veteran of fighting against the Soviet army in Mongolia Sato understood the importance of having secure supply lines for troops operating in remote territory. He would become infamous within the Imp
erial Japanese Army for his handling of the battle of Kohima.
Lieutenant Masao Hirakubo: Hirakubo was the son of an accountant from Yokohama and was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army where he became a supply officer with the 58th Infantry Regiment. Although he set out believing in the war his experiences at Kohima would alter his views forever. After the end of the war he would embark on an extraordinary journey to try and heal the psychological wounds of Kohima.
COPYRIGHT
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
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First published in Great Britain by HarperPress in 2010
Copyright © Fergal Keane 2010
Fergal Keane asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Maps by Hugh Bicheno
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